Christmas after the war
by Leah992
Summary: A one-off that may continue into a full story, so review please! Hermione and Ginny stay at Hogwarts for Christmas during their final year but find it hard to be festive after losing so much during the war. New character Professor Harte, DADA. Please Don't criticize spelling and grammor, its just a oneoff! I may use and eddited version in a later fanfic.


Hermione turned over and opened her eyes. A small crack of pale light was drifting through the hanging around her bed and it took her a minute or two to realise that it was Christmas day. She didn't smile. Instead Hermione just stared up at the canopy above her and though about Ron. Only 24 hours and she would be seeing him and Harry, her boyfriend and her best friend. But even that couldn't make her smile.

Pulling aside the hangings, Hermione swung her legs over the side of the bed and felt around for her slippers. Out side the window was a sheet of white, the small amount of snow from yesterday having turned into a full scale blizzard. It was like someone had forgotten to color the world in and had just left the paper blank.

Rising to her feet she looked around for Ginny.

Her hanging were open and her bed rumpled where she had slept, but she wasn't there and the presents at the foot of her bed were untouched.

Hermione pulled on her dressing gown and headed downstairs, pausing at the window to try and make out any discernible features and failing.

Ginny was sat by the fire in the common room, a book open in front of her. Hermione moved round the back of the sofa and sat down next to her, looking down at the book in Ginny's lap.

It was a photo album. Smiling and waving up at the two young women was the original members of the DA. Hermione could see herself standing between Ron and Harry, smiling blissfully. Ginny was grinning up, leaning into Michael Corner, who kept glancing down at her. Around the edge of the photo, Harry's untidy scrawl was unmistakable.

"He made it for my birthday." Ginny said very quietly.

They sat in silence as they stared down at the photo, their eyes constantly drifting to Fred and George, who were roaring with laughter at the back.

After a while Hermione spoke. "Did you feel weird this morning too?"

Ginny nodded, looking up to smile sadly at Hermione. "I don't know what it is. I just woke up and felt exhausted, but at the same time really alert."

Hermione grimaced. "Me too."

They sat in silence for a while flicking through the photo's, every so often cracking a smile at a scribbled note of Harry's. There was a Griffindor Quiditch team photo, from after Harry's first win as team captain. Every one was jumping up and down in joy and Dean kept picking Ginny up and twirling her round. Harry had commented above saying "How on earth did you two get away with so much blatant PDA!". On the next page Hermione blushed a little at a picture that had all the signs of being a Creevey shot, one of Harry and Ginny sharing their first kiss together in the Gryrindor common room, Ron in the background staring on in shock.

When the Portrait hole opened with a loud creak, Hermione and Ginny both jumped. Professor Harte walked in, Sammy Smiles wriggling excitedly in her arms. As soon as Sammy caught sight of Ginny, she let out a high pitched yelp and sprang form Harte's grip. Tumbling to the floor she darted forward, a blurred ball of white fluff, and clambered onto Ginny's lap, knocking the book out the way, and proceeded to desperately reach for Ginny's face with her panting tongue.

"Hello girls." Said Harte in her low melodic voice. "Just thought I would pop up and give you you're Christmas presents!"

Hermione noticed the two parcels under one of her arms. She darted a look at Ginny, who face was turning the same color as her hair.

Hermione stammered "Oh Professer! You shouldn't have! We didn't get you anything..."

Harte waved a hand dismissively. "Oh don't worry about that! You've got no need to worry. I've had enough bottles of firewiskey of the staff to open my own bar!

Sitting in an armchair next to them, Harte handed over the parcels. Grinning and nodding eagerly she said "Go on. Open them!"

Ginny held her parcel out for Sammy to rip into the paper with her teeth as Hermione pulled at hers.

Harte had got them both the same thing, a large, deep purple, zip up Hoddie. On the front was the Griffindor crest, embroidered in with fantastic detail. Below in flowing golden thread were the words "DADA – CLASS OF '99"

Ginny grinned as she turned hers around to see "TROUBLE WEASLEY" printed on the back. Hermione looked at the back of her own hoddie to see "WONDER GIRL".

They both looked up at Profeser Harte who was grinning at them. "Now I know I'm not supposed to have favorites, seeing as I am head of house, but if Slughorn can have his slug-club then I'm having my own lot. I've sent Dean Neville, John and Tracey their own ones to."

Her voice got deeper and more melodious. "You're my first ever lot of Gryffindors that are going to be leaving me in the summer, and having taught you myself I feel a lot closer to you all. You've really helped me fit in this last term and you cannot know how much it means to me to have you on my side."

Ginny was blushing so hard now, her ears had started to turn red in such a way that Hermione was reminded of Ron.

Hermione cleared her throat and said. "Thank you so much Professor."

Harte smiled at them again and reach across to pick Ginny's book of the floor. Harte looked down at the open page and then back up to Ginny?

"These are you're brothers aren't they?"

Harte held up the book. It was a photo of Fred and George, arms around each other, grinning mischievously. The photo had been taken the Christmas of Hermione's 4th year, and they were both looking dapper in their dress robes. Harry's only note on this page was a surprisingly neat line saying only "I miss him."

Ginny stared at the page and smiled sadly. "Yeah. That's Fred and George."

Harte looked down at the photo smiling slightly. "Which ones which?"

"I really couldn't tell you." Ginny replied.

Harte looked up from the book and observed the two girls kindly. "How are you coping?"

Hermione grimaced and stared at her lap, her eyes burning dangerously. "Is it that easy to tell?" she asked.

Harte smiled a little and replied quietly "Only to those who know."

They were very quiet for a while. Sammy had rolled on to her back and was staring up at Ginny expectantly, who smiled down at the puppy and proceeded to scratch her belly.

Suddenly Harte sprung to her feet and placed her fists on her hips. Hermione almost expected her to bark "Starting positions!" but instead she said in a determined voice "Right you two. Go up stair and put on some warm clothes. There is something very important you need to see."

Ten minutes later Hermione, Ginny, Sammy and Professor Harte were all walking towards the entrance hall. Hermione and Ginny had both put on their new hoodies and were pleased to discover the thick silky fleece-lining on the inside. Harte explained that in summer they could remove the fleece linning to leave just the cotton outings, so it wouldn't be to hot, something that Ron would have found very impressive.

Reaching the entrance hall, Harte pulled on one of the huge oak doors that led outside. The blizzard had calmed down a little but was still going strong. Harte started down the steps and, after a moments hesitation, Ginny and Hermione followed.

They walked a little way before Harte stopped and looked back at them. She pulled out her wand, considered for a moment, then produced a bench from thin air for them to sit on. Ginny and Hermione sat down as Harte attached a leash to Sammy and let her run around in the drifts while still being safely linked to the Professor.

Looking at the two of them, Harte smiled in a sad sort of way and said. "Okay. Now I want you to just listen."

Hermione frowned and looked at Ginny. Ginny, rather than question this strange instruction had closed her eyes and lent her head back. Hermione, feeling rather silly, did the same. At first, all she could hear was the strange muffled sound of the wind that was carrying the snow. The sound had that strange muffled quality that only came with a heavy snow fall like this one.

But then Hermione heard it. Laughter.

Looking around her she noticed that Ginny was staring at something through the snow directly in front of them. Staring hard, Hermione could see blurred shapes moving around. A wave of snow shifted and Hermione could finally make out what it was.

A group of Huffelpuff first years were hiding behind the toppled form of a snowman. Two of the boys kept popping their heads up to hurtle snowballs off into the distance, one of them bursting into laughter when his friend received a snowball to the face. The other three had managed to pin a Ravenclaw boy to the ground and were tickling him relentlessly, and he in turn was screaming in laughter.

Hermione absentmindedly touched her checks which were hurting from smiling so much. Ginny even burst out laughing when the head of the snowman that one of the boys was leaning on collapsed, causing him to fall face first into the snow. All the snowballs had stopped flying as everyone was too busy laughing.

Suddenly Hermione realized that this was the first time that she had heard Ginny laugh in months.

"Just out of site," Said Harte, as she waved her rarely used wand to produce three steaming mugs of hot chocolate, "is a snow fortress that a group of Ravenclaws and Slytherins were making. The Hufflepuffs came out and built their snow man, and the group in the fortress announced that this snowman was a scout for an advancing army, and send William there," She pointed at the boy who, only a moment ago was being tickled, but who was now joining in with throwing the snowballs at the unseen fortress "to dispatch the scout, and so started their snowball fight."

Harte paused to take a sip form her mug.

"The Ravenclaws and Slytherins do defense against the dark arts with me and kept asking me in November how to build the perfect snow fortress when we were covering magical and non magical battle tactics. I was just coming across to the castle from home when I found them building one all together." She smiled. "Amazing really when you think only a few moths ago it was unheard of for the separate houses to even speak to each other, let alone play all together!"

Hermione stared at the young children dashing around. She felt a warmth start to spread through her chest that had nothing to do with the hot-chocolate.

It was their laughter. It was impossible to listen to them and not share some of their carefree happiness. It was infectious.

Ginny looked round at Professor Harte, who was pulling on Sammy's lead as the puppy seamed to be stuck in a snow drift.

"How did you know?" said Ginny some of the smile on her face creeping into her voice. "How did you know it would help?"

Harte smiled at them both and drank some more of her hot chocolate. She stared off into the distance, and it took her a while to answer, as if she was choosing her words carefully.

"When I was 11," She finally said, looking at them with a simple sad smile on her long face, "my mother took her own life."

Hermione's jaw dropped open.

Of all the possible secrets that they had thrown around about Harte past, they had never in a million years would have thought that Proferssor Harte's mother, the mother she was so constantly mentioning, had committed suicide. Ginny was staring at Harte in equal shock.

Harte saw their faces and smiled crookedly before continuing.

"She did it in the summer, so we'd had time to accept that it had actually happened before Christmas. But still, it was our first without her.

"Our Dad tried his best, but Mam had always sorted Christmas. It was the little things Dad would get wrong that felt like the most noticeable, like the gravy was too thin and the potatoes weren't as crispy. He did also burn the turkey but that didn't feel as bad as the fact we couldn't get the Christmas Pudding to set on fire properly.

"When we ate we tried to talk, discus the church service the previous night, try to joke about dad driving a nail all the way through the door and out the other side in his attempts to hang a Christmas wreath, but it all felt wrong. It just felt like it was something we had never done before. Like with the Christmas tree!"

Harte frowned in a frustrated way as she said "I swear to heaven above that we decorated that tree the same way we always did. I'd been putting those decorations in the same places since I was born! But when we were finished it looked wrong. Everything was bunched up and wasn't as good as when Mam was there to do it with us."

Harte sighed and smiled weekly at Hermione and Ginny.

"It was like there was a giant hole in the room with us, right where Mam used to sit. We tried to ignore it but it was there, trying to pull us in. I remember watching the television after supper like we always did, and the show we were watching made a joke about cooking that I knew she would have found funny! So I turned to make sure she heard it and... and it was like losing her all over again. I looked into the hole, and the pain all came rushing back again..."

Harte's voice trailed off as she gazed into the distance, watching the first years from a truce and tried to put the snowman back together.

Eventually Harte turned to look at them, smiling at Ginny who was furiously wiping at her eyes.

"It get's easier." She said simply.

"You start to make new traditions. The huge hole gets smaller and smaller until its just a shadow, a reassuring reminder, sharing everything with you."

Harte paused and took a deep gulp of her hot chocolate.

"I have my own routine now. I managed to find Mam's recipe book so the dinner tastes just like hers used to and I still put her stocking out on Christmas Eve. Before I left home Dad used to put her wedding ring in there and when we emptied them the next morning we would say to my little brothers that it was Mam who'd done it, because she wanted us to know she was with us."

Harte smiled at Hermione, who was crying a little. "I had to learn not to hate my Mam for what she did. You two have a much easier job. You have to learn to accept that the war was hard on everyone. You're not the only ones in pain! Yes you lost your brother and you're friends, but the Creeves lost a son, Teddy Lupin lost his parents..."

She looked up at the sky, smiled sadly and said in the thick welsh accent that she reserved only for quotes of her mothers "Grief is universal."

Harte looked down at them. "On Mam's birthday I like to go and sit in a park somewhere and listen to the children laughing. It helps. Maybe it reminds us that although everything may be falling apart, there is still happiness in the world, and there always will be."

They sat in silence, drinking their coco, until the first years spotted Professor Harte and ran over, begging her to see their fortress.

The three of them finished their drinks and Ginny and Hermione watched as Harte disappeared the bench and mugs, before departing with a promise to meet up at lunch.

As Ginny and Hermione headed back towards the castle they heard Harte crying out in a thick Scottish accent "Look out wee Brain! Tis a rapid beastie stalkin yond a more! Rally ye swords else we cana survive! Oh wait its just my dog... Never mind!"

The first years found this hilarious and laughed louder than ever before. Ginny turned round to grin at Hermione, who smiled sheepishly back.

"Come one 'Mione! Lets go open our presents."

And feeling a little better they both disappeared into the warmth of the castle.


End file.
